Last weekend a gentleman arrived at my door with a request to stock copies of the current Official Syllabus for the upcoming Kiwanis St. Catharines Music & Arts Festival, which will be held from April 8th to the 27th of this year. Even though I run a web-based business, thereby limiting the number of people actually coming to pick up orders, I agreed to stock copies of the Official Syllabus in case people contact me requesting a copy of it.
I have no idea if anyone will, but just in case, I thought I would publicize the fact in my weekly blog post to give them some publicity as the annual event is set to get underway again this year. When you think about it, although April seems a long time off, the actual deadline for entries is coming up a month from now on February 15th. Whether online, mailed or delivered by hand, the deadline is the same.
The Festival Chair, Peter Brown, is available if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions regarding the Festival at peter@copperbeechco.com; for general enquiries or to volunteer your services, you can contact Claudette Borowski at cborowskimusic@gmail.com. Any other information should be available through the website at www.stcatharineskiwanisfestival.ca including festival dates and locations.
Categories range from piano, strings, guitar, classical guitar, brass and woodwinds, band, vocal, dance and speech arts. So a wide range of arts are celebrated with the Kiwanis Music & Arts Festival, with ages of participants ranges widely, from very young to young adult. You never know what you'll hear until you actually go and watch the performances unfold.
I remember being asked a number of years ago to emcee the annual gala performance in St. Catharines, usually held at the end of April or beginning of May, and it was always inspiring to see such young, talented people performing at such a high level on their chosen musical instrument. Performances were not always letter perfect, but they are not expected to be. That being said, the calibre of performances were uniformly high. This year's Festival of Stars Celebration will be held May 16th, by the way, and all participants receive a certificate.
In addition to Peter Brown and Claudette Borowski, the Kiwanis St. Catharines team includes George Cleland overseeing strings; Michelle Cumiskey with vocals; Anne Deyme of Rysons United Music Studios of St. Catharines overseeing guitar/brass/woodwind and band categories; Deanna Smith with speech arts; Jordan Setacci with dance and Jeanne teSligte, piano. Together, they all endeavour to carry out the mission to encourage, nurture and support performances and educational activities in the city; musicians can enhance their interpretive and musical styles as a means of strengthening character development and further their enjoyment of the arts.
Once again, the deadline for entries this year is February 15th, and the Official Syllabus is now available at many locations throughout the city of St. Catharines, including my offices for A Web of Fine Music. If you want to pick up a copy here, send me an email directly at music@vaxxine.com and I will set one aside for you.
Of course, if you need a recording of music for a performance for preparations, I can certainly help you there as well; just send me an email or go through my website at www.finemusic.ca and I will do my very best to get a recording of a particular work for you.
Let the competitions begin!
January 14th, 2013.
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